No Mercy
by Silence777
Summary: To anyone who can hear this: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation. Repeat! Proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation!”
1. The Apartments: Part 1

**NO MERCY **

1: The Apartments

Part 1

"Hey Bill," Francis's gruff voice broke the sombre silence between the group.

"Yeah?" the sixty year-old Vietnam verteran replied, his eyes closed. He took a deep drag from the cigarette in his mouth.

"Got a cigarette to spare?" The tattoo-covered biker asked. He was leaning against a table that had been, for some reason, placed on the apartment rooftop they were now resting in. Placed on the table were four first aid kits, four Remington 870 pump action shotguns and a pile of shotgun shells.

It had been about forty minutes since the four survivors had 'crossed the street', as Bill had put it. Simple as that sounded, it had been _quite_ an ordeal, seeing as they had to evade a murderous, rampaging mob in doing so.

Bill opened his eyes and grimaced before reaching into the breast pocket of his green vest and tossing Francis a lighter and the pack of Marlboro Reds he had scavanged in a convienience store five hours ago.

"Share 'em out." Bill said, before closing his eyes again.

"Thanks." Francis said, as he lit up. He handed the pack to a bald-headed black man wearing a white shirt and a red tie, who was sitting next to him. Louis had been a Junior Systems Analyst before the virus outbreak that had turned the population of the entire city into bloodthirsty monsters.

Louis hesitated, before reaching for a stick. "Thanks," he said as Francis helped him light up.

"Zoey? How about you?" Francis held out the pack of cigarettes to a teenaged girl wearing a pink polo tee shirt and jeans, with her long brown hair tied up in a ponytail.

"I'll pass," Zoey said, leaning against the concrete wall surrounding the perimeter of the rooftop.

"C'mon kiddo. It's the end of the fuckin' world. Live a little."

"It's bad enough that the zombies are probably going to kill us all. We probably shouldn't give them any help." Zoey smiled grimly.

"Shit!" Louis suddenly began coughing and sputtering violently. Francis patted him hard on the back several times.

"See what I mean?" Zoey said, smiling grimly.

"Oh, lay off Zoey." Louis said, smiling back.

Suddenly, Bill opened his eyes and stood up quickly.

"What is it, Bill?" Francis asked. "Another horde?"

"No," Bill said. "Don't you hear it?"

"Hear what?" Abruptly, the rest of the group stood up, listening intently. Now all of them could hear a low, thrumming sound coming from a distance.

"What is it, Bill?" Zouis asked.

"It's a chopper." Bill said. "And it's heading towards us."

"Hot damn! It must be that news helicoptor I saw earlier!" Louis said, his voice excited. "They must be coming back to rescue us."

"I don't think so. If they didn't land earlier even after you were shouting and running for it, I doubt they would land now," Francis pointed out.

Louis winced. "Can't you be positive for _once_, Francis?"

"I see it!" Zoey said. She ran out to the edge of rooftop and began to wave her arms about. "Hey! _Hey! We're over here! We're not infected! Hey!_"

"Zoey!" The three men ran to where Zoey was standing, and at that point all three of them saw the news chopper. It flew between the row of apartment buildings, its powerful searchlight illuminating the street below.

Now Louis was shouting too. "_Hey! Heyy!!_"

Then a male voice, amplified by a bullhorn or a microphone, sounded from the helicoptor. "_To anyone who can hear this: proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation. Repeat! Proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation!_"

"Dammit!" Louis swore as the helicoptor flew away. "We were right beside them and they didn't fucking see us!"

"Calm down Louis..." Bill said. He turned to the rest of the group. "We can take the subway tunnels to the hospital. There's a...red line station not from here."

"Sounds like a plan," Zoey said. She turned to Louis and smiled warmly. "Don't worry, Louis. Everything will be fine."

Louis sighed before muttering, "Sorry guys."

"No problem, wussy," Francis said, his face breaking into a big grin. "C'mon. Let's get our guns and kick some fuckin' zombie asses."

"Before they eat ours," Zoey said grimly.

The three men stared at her, and she grinned and began laughing. "Eat our asses! Get it?"

There was an awkward pause before Francis and Louis began to laugh heartily. Bill simply smiled and shook his head.

********************************************

"You know..." Louis said. "Isn't it a huge coincidence that this guy-" He gestured toward the corpse of a young man propped up against a wall in pool of dried blood. "-had the exact same shotgun as the three of us do? And that the four of us all have the exact same weapons."

"Beats me. Maybe he raided a police car too..." Francis said, loading his shotgun.

"Well it's thanks to him that I don't need to fight off the zombie hordes with a stupid pistol while you guys are having fun blowing their heads off." Zoey said. She looked doubtfully at her shotgun.

"Hey Zoey," Bill asked. "Do you know how to use that?" He pointed with his chin towards the shotgun Zoey was holding.

Zoey looked sheepishly at the old man. "Not really. My dad..." She paused, her eyes showing faint pain at the mention of her old man. "My dad taught me how to shoot, but he only trained me with pistols and a few of his rifles. No shotguns. How do you load it?"

"Well..." He gestured at Zoey to hand over her shotgun, which she did promptly. He picked up a shotgun shell and began to teach her how to load the shotgun, even though he did not load the shell in.

"And to fire...you flick the safety here off. Then you aim and pull the trigger. After that you twist this thing..." he gestured to the lever on the pump of the shotgun before twisting it. "Then you slide it back and forth to eject the shell casing. Here, try dry shooting it then loading it yourself."

"Huh. It's a little more complicated than in the movies." She retrieved the shotgun, holding it by the barrel before carefully pointing it away from the others. "Okay...so shoot..." _Click. _"Twist...and slide." _Click-clack. _

"That's it," Bill said.

"Was your dad a cop?" Francis asked. Zoey looked curiously at him. "Oh. 'Cos you know quite a lot about gun safety. Like not pointing at people and keeping your hands away from the trigger...you don't have to answer if you want to."

Zoey smiled wanly. "It's okay, Francis. My dad wasn't a cop. He was a gun nut...he liked to collect rifles and pistols so I grew up with guns since I was a kid. He started teaching me to shoot when I was six." A flicker of nostalgia passed through her face.

"Well Zoey," Bill said, smiling. "I'm sure that he's proud of you, wherever he is."

"I'll second that," Francis said.

"Me too!" Louis said.

"Thanks, guys." Zoey's smile now seemed close to tears.

They finished loading the guns and collecting their first aid kits, and turned to the roof access door. Bill pressed his ear against the keyhole and winced when he heard the familiar moans, groans and shufflings. The song of the infected.

"There's a lot of them in there," he said, straightening up.

"Well..." Zoey said, looking at her companions. "Are you guys ready?"

"Hell yeah," said Francis, pumping his shotgun.

"I'm with ya," Louis said nervously.

"Affirmative," Bill said. "Let's go, then."

Quietly, he opened the door and shone his flashlight into the gloom of the stairwell.


	2. The Apartments: Part 2

**NO MERCY **

1: The Apartments

Part 1

The sight of a zombie never failed to instill mixed feelings in Zoey. Just watching them stumble around in circles, vomit, or lean their foreheads against a wall (that was the worst, because it seemed so _normal_, so human. It made her wonder if the zombie was, God forbid, partially lucid and aware of his or her condition), always filled her with a strange mix of sadness, disgust and fear.

This one used to be a young male. He was making retching noises as a pink, chunky liquid spewed from his mouth and onto the wooden floor. Then, he looked up into Bill's flashlight beam...and at the group.

'_Mmprh!_' He said.

The explosion from Zoey's shotgun echoed through the stariwell. Blood spurted from several wounds in the zombies chest as the shotgun pellets spread out to do their deadly work. He stumbled twice before crumpling to the floor, dead.

"Twist...and slide," Zoey mumbled, unaware that she had said it out loud. The group tensed, alert in case the shotgun blast attracted a horde of zombies to their position...but nothing happened.

"Whew," Louis said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Let's go," Bill said in a low voice. "Down the stairs."

They went down the stairs to an open doorway leading to an apartment's kitchen as quickly and silently as they could. A zombie stood in sight within the doorway, his back to the group. Bill blew it's head off before it could notice them.

"Hang on," Bill said, stopping at the foot of the stairs and holding a hand up. The group stopped. "There's a lot of 'em here."

"I can hear that, old man," Francis said.

Bill's brow furrowed. "Alright...at my count, all four of us go 'round the corner. Francis and I will take point and crouch while the two of you-" He gestured to Zoey and Louis. "-the two of you stand at the back and fire. _Don't fire until we're both down. _Alright?"

"Who put _you_ in charge?" Francis asked, grinning. When Bill glared at him, he waved his hands and said, "Alright, alright, I'm with ya."

"Okay," Louis said.

"Let's go," Zoey said.

"Okay...at my count." Bill readied his shotgun. "Francis get your ass up front. One...two..._three_."

The group rounded the corner. Immediately, Bill and Francis lowered themselves in a crouch.

A low growl sounded. Four of the zombies in the room immediately began sprinting at breakneck speed towards the group. One of them just made it over the kitchen counter when a single shotgun blast sent him flying into a couch. Two more blasts sounded, and two more of the zombies fell down, dead.

The fourth had reached Francis; its face contorted in a vicious snarl, bloodlust shining in its bloodshot, pupil-less eyes.

"Oh no you don't, fuckface," Francis growled. He smashed the stock of his shotgun into the zombie's chest, sending it stumbling backwards. Francis raised his shotgun, but before he could pull the trigger, an explosion sounded above him and the zombie's head exploded.

Francis looked up at the smoking barrel of Louis' shotgun and glared.

"Sorry," Louis grinned sheepishly.

Zoey and Bill continued to shoot, blowing away the rest of the zombies in the room who had not yet noticed the group.

"Got 'em all!" Zoey said, grinning. She loaded several shells into her shotgun.

At this, a series of inhuman growls, grunts and snarls began to echo in the apartment.

"Said it too soon," Louis said, readying his shotgun and grimacing.

"It's another horde!" Bill said. "Zoey, Louis, take the counter! Francis and I will stay here. Move!"  
They did as they were told. Almost at once, they could hear the sound of many running feet approaching their position. Just as Zoey and Louis reached the counter, a huge wave of zombies emerged from a corner ahead and to the left of the room they were facing. As always, Zoey was shocked at the sheer numbers at which the zombies could swarm.

"Holy shit!" Louis exclaimed.

Zoey leaned her shotgun against the counter and fired once into the group of zombies approaching them. Immediately Zoey could see the shotgun's effectiveness in close quarters as four of the zombies collapsed immediately.

What followed was a gruesome free-for-all as Zoey and Louis continued to fire at the ensuing horde, beating them back with the shotgun stocks if they got too close to the counter. Bill and Francis covered Zoey and Louis from the back, blasting any zombies that tried to attack them fron the back by going around the counter.

"Shit! I'm out!" Zoey yelled. "Louis, cover me." She began to load the shotgun while beating back any zombies that were trying to climb the counter.

"Shit!" Louis cried. "I'm out too!" He tried do what Zoey was doing as well, but when several zombies got close enough to swipe at them, he yelled "Screw this!", threw down his shotgun, and began blasting away at the zombies with his pistol.

The whole ordeal lasted about three minutes, but it felt much longer than that to the survivors. A last zombie ran headlong toward the counter, making a strange squealing noise, before Zoey blew its head off. The zombie flew backwards, turning over twice in a gruesome cartwheel before slumping to its knees.

A brief silence hung over the four survivors as they regrouped and surveryed the carnage in the room. It was soon broken by Francis, who smirked.

"What?" Bill asked.

"He fell funny." He grinned and began to laugh softly. "What?" he asked, in response to the other's stares.

******************************

"Whoa," Louis said.

"What happened here?" Zoey wondered aloud.

They had cautiously made their way through the apartment room and down a second flight of stairs. The area, however, seemed clear of zombies. "Seems like that horde consisted of every damn zombie in this fuckin' apartment," Francis had said.

Now they were standing in front of an enormous hole in the floor, spanning from wall to wall of the room.

"Floor musta caved in or something," Francis shook his head.

"No," Bill said. "Remember that hole in the wall we passed? Something ripped this whole damn room apart. Maybe it was a tank."

"Tank?" Louis asked. The others looked at Bill curiously.

"That big one we fought in the street," Bill said. "At least, that's what I call it."

"Oh."

They approached the hole, a drop of less than six feet leading to the ground floor of the apartment building. An assortment of familiar moans drifted up towards them.

"I hear more of them," Zoey said, looking at Bill, her eyes wide.

Bill nodded grimly. "Let's go," he said. "Down the hole."

"Doesn't that sound great?" Francis grumbled.

They dropped quietly down before checking their surroundings for zombies. There were none.

"In the next room," Zoey whispered. She pointed to a brightly lit doorway directly ahead of them, past an empty living room.

Carefully, the group moved toward the door. Soon, they could see the source of the bright light; a Humvee, its bright headlights still on, had crashed into the wall of the room. As Bill, who was in the lead, shielded his eyes from the glow, he shivered. _What the hell happened here?_ He wondered.

"Bill! Look out!" Louis yelled. A balding zombie wearing a checkered shirt was running full speed at Bill. Bill's eyes snapped away from the Humvee and he raised his shotgun, smashing the stock into the zombie's face, causing it to stumble backward. Blood from the zombie's nose spattered, and a few rotting teeth clattered to the ground. A blast from Francis' shotgun blew a huge hole in the zombie's sternum.

"You okay, old man?" Francis looked at Bill.

"Yeah," Bill said. "Let's go."

The zombie moans seemed to be coming from a doorway to the left of the room. Bill and Francis approached the doorway first, shooting four zombies that were in their immediate view.

That was when they heard a loud burping noise. Bill stared at the Francis.

"Wasn't me," Francis said, raising his hands.

The burping sound started again.

The four survivors stepped carefully into the doorway. It led to a dar passage with a doorway leading to an alley outside the apartment building. The group held their noses as the smell from a pile of rotting human corpses near the exit hit their noses. The smell of decay...and something else.

Bill crouched and stared at one of the bodies. Covering its entire upper body was the same green slime he had wiped off another corpse just across the street.

"I don't like this," Bill said, just as the burping sound came again, this time much closer. He stood up, gripping his shotgun.

Just then, a zombie stepped into the doorway. But they could all tell it was not an ordinary one. This zombie's body was completely bloated, like a grotesque baloon. Covering the zombie's arms, neck and right eye were what seemed to be enormous boils. It stared at the group with inflamed, beady eyes and burped.

Then it advanced towards the group.

"Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!" Francis said, stepping forward towards the zombie. He prodded the barrel of his shotgun into its corpulent belly and pulled the trigger.

The zombie exploded with a loud bang akin to that of a pinata, showering Francis with blood, gore and green slime.

"Aw shit!" Francis yelled. "It stinks! Bill, it's the same stuff on the dead bodies!"

A series of bloodthirsty howls and screams echoed in the distance. Soon the group could hear dozens of sprinting footfalls, growls and grunts approaching them.

"This is gonna be bad," Zoey said, clutching her shotgun so tight her knuckles turned white.

"Get ready," Bill said, raising his shotgun.

_Thanks for the reviews, guys! Please continue to R & R, it will definetely encourage me to continue writing =)_


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